Australian billionaire Clive Palmer to build Titanic II30 April 2012 Last updated at 04:33 GMT

Clive Palmer, one of Australia's richest men, has commissioned a Chinese state-owned company to build a 21st Century version of the Titanic.

The mining billionaire told Australian media that construction would start at the end of next year.

It would be ready to set sail in 2016.

The plan, he added, was for the vessel to be as similar as possible to the original Titanic in design and specifications, but with modern technology.

Mr Palmer told Australian media that he had signed a memorandum of understanding with CSC Jinling Shipyard to construct the ship.

"It will be every bit as luxurious as the original Titanic but of course it will have state-of-the-art 21st Century technology and the latest navigation and safety systems," he said in a statement.

The announcement comes just weeks after the centenary of the sinking of the ill-fated Titanic.

The vessel, the largest luxury ship in its time, struck an iceberg on its maiden voyage from Southampton to New York. It went down on 15 April 1912, leaving more than 1,500 people dead.

"Of course it will sink if you put a hole in it,'' Mr Palmer said in response to questions from reporters on whether the Titanic replica would sink.

The new vessel is scheduled to sail from London to New York in late 2016, if all goes as planned.

"It is going to be designed so it won't sink,''(yeah that's what they said last time ) he added. ''But, of course, if you are superstitious like you are, you never know what could happen.''

The cost of the construction is not known, a spokesman for Mr Palmer told Australian media.

The mining magnate from Queensland, who has strong business relations with China, has expanded into tourism. He owns a luxury resort on the Sunshine Coast and has plans to build a fleet of luxury liners.

His plan to build the Titanic replica was announced on the same day that he revealed plans, in a separate news conference, to contest the next federal election in Queensland.

He told reporters that he has expressed interest in standing for Queensland's Liberal National Party (LNP), part of the conservative opposition at federal level, in the Brisbane seat of Lilley - currently held by Deputy Prime Minister and Treasurer Wayne Swan.

Titanic II is a 2010 direct-to-DVD disaster film written, directed by, and starring Shane Van Dyke and distributed by The Asylum.[1] The film is not a sequel to the 1997 film by James Cameron, although movie website Dread Central has suggested the film may be a mockbuster of it.[2] It was released Direct-to-TV in Australia on August 7, 2010. It premiered on SyFy on Sky Digital in the UK and Ireland on August 9 to a strongly negative critical reaction. It was released on August 24 in the United States.

Plot

On April 14, 2012, 100 years after the sinking of the RMS Titanic, a new, similar-looking luxury cruise liner named the SS Titanic II is christened. It then embarks on her maiden voyage using the same route the Titanic took 100 years before in reverse direction (from New York City, USA to Southampton, England). During the Atlantic crossing, the effects of global warming cause the Helheim Glacier in Greenland to collapse, creating a giant tsunami that sends an iceberg crashing into the ship, while the passengers are partying in the dining saloon. The entire starboard side of the ship and the starboard lifeboat ramps are crushed and immense pressure is put on the liner's turbines. As people struggle to escape the rising waters and run for the submarine-shaped lifeboats on the port side, the turbines eventually explode, killing many people, including ship captain Will Howard. The explosion also caused an immense fire inside the sinking vessel, which is listing to its starboard side.

Minutes later, another tsunami, this one more powerful and faster than the speed of sound, caused by a second collapse of the Helheim Glacier hits the liner, flipping it upside-down and drowning the people still on board and killing all the passengers in the lifeboats. With most of the ship flooded, the Titanic II finally sinks. Very few passengers survive.